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5th Gen Shiny Discussion/FAQ Thread

A repost of the shiny thread for a few reasons.

Firstly; the current one already had over 1000 pages so a restart just for that is not a bad idea. Secondly, the previous rule of having to post once per page is currently being relaxed. That means you can post multiple times a page! On that note however, you are not allowed to spam or post meaningless stuff like 'I haven't found any yet' too often; otherwise that rule may well reappear.

Anyways! Post if you have found any shiny Pokemon and discuss them for the BW games (not in other games, please; they have their own threads). Follow these rules for the thread if you don't want to be infracted.

You may not go offtopic in this thread at all. This is discussion of and questions about shinies only. This means no talking about your favorite ice cream flavor or which Pokemon is the coolest, or anything like that. This also means none of the ever-annoying "congrats" or "good luck" messages. If you feel the need to say that to someone, do it on their profile.

This is B/W, which means Black and White shinies. Don't post here talking about SRing for Rayquaza or your Red Gyarados in Silver.

No "semi-legit" (aka still hacked but makes people feel better about themselves) or "hacked" shinies. No one can stop you from cheating to get Newmoon Island on your Pearl, but don't share it with us. Don't post here saying you got a fake shiny Reshiram/Zekrom or something.

1. Q: Shiny Pokemon? What are those?
A: Shiny Pokemon first appeared in the Gold and Silver games for the Gameboy Color. Basically, they are alternately colored Pokemon (for example, shiny Charizard is black instead of orange).

2. Q: Wow! Are shiny Pokemon more powerful?
A: Unfortunately, no. The ONLY difference between shinies and regular Pokemon is the color. They’re pretty much just for bragging rights.

3: Q: How can I find a shiny Pokemon?
A: Every single catchable Pokemon that you find (Eggs, Gifts, Wild, etc) has a 1/8192 chance of being shiny. There are a few ways to find certain Pokémon as shiny quicker, but you still need to rely on luck. They are often called Masuda Method and PokeRadar Chaining (note the latter is for D/P/Pt only).

4: Q: But I’ve seen over 10000 Pokemon in my game and haven’t found a shiny yet! That can’t be right!
A: 1/8192 is a probability. That doesn’t mean that after 8192 Pokemon, you will automatically find a shiny.

A good example of this is when you roll dice. You have a 1/6 chance of getting any particular number when you roll, such as the number 2. That doesn’t mean that you will roll a 2 in six rolls, or that your second roll will be a 2, etc.

The same goes for shiny Pokemon. You may find a shiny on your first try, or within a hundred tries, or maybe not until 10000 tries.

To delve in a bit deeper, picture that whenever you encounter a Pokemon, a random number between 1 and 8,192 is generated. Let’s say that the number 500 is the “shiny number.” If 500 happens to be the random number that’s generated, the Pokemon will be shiny. If the number is anything else, it will be a normal Pokemon. Nice odds, aren’t they?

5: Q: If I breed a shiny Pokemon, will the baby from the Egg be shiny as well?
A: Unlike in G/S/C, where you had a higher chance of hatching shiny offspring when the parents were shiny, this is NOT true for any of the later generation games. In the 4th Generation, almost every Pokemon has the same odds of being shiny. There is the exception to this rule, being the Masuda Method.

6: Q: What is this soft resetting/SRing thing I’ve been hearing about?
A: Soft resetting (SRing) is when you press Start + Select + L + R to reset your DS (just like turning the system off and on, skipping the firmware screen). It’s helpful when trying to find a shiny of a Pokemon you can save in front of, such as your starter at the beginning, legendaries, etc. It's faster than turning the game on and off, and it's less stressful on the system/batteries. Save, see if the Pokemon is shiny, if not SR your game and try again. Just like finding any shiny, this depends completely on luck, but if you’re patient you should eventually get your shiny. Keep in mind that this could take hours or days with luck, and months and months without.

8: Q: How do I know if I have a shiny Pokemon?
A: Besides the change in color, a shiny Pokemon will sparkle when it
comes into battle. There are also a couple changes on its summary page, which you can see on the main site’s shiny page (link above).

9. Q: When will I know if I’ve gotten a shiny starter?
A: When you’re choosing your starter, the game will show you a picture of each Pokemon. This picture will NOT show you whether that Pokemon is shiny or not (unlike in HGSS). You will have to choose it and check its summary, or use it in battle, to find out if it’s shiny or not.

10. Q: Can I save before hatching my Egg, and reset until I have a shiny?
A: No. All of the Egg's values are set once you take it. However, you can save before taking it and have a chance.

11. Q: If my shiny Pokemon evolves, will it stay shiny?
A: Yes. Once shiny, always shiny.
If you have any other questions or think something should be added here, don't hesitate to PM me.

Masuda Method
Essentially, the Masuda Method consists of this:
1. You obtain a Foreign Pokemon [E.g. a German Ditto]
2. You breed your Pokemon with aforementioned foreign Pokemon.
3. The Game checks to see if one pokemon is foreign.
4. Thus, the chances of getting a Shiny Pokemon is roughly fourthed [supposedly 1/2048 instead of 1/8192 in 4th gen games, but in B/W it is 6/8192 (!)]Masuda's Official Blog.

A parody of the Pokemon Colosseum game, full of pastries and Miror B.
Completed. Four times winner of Best Comedy/Funniest Fic.

It's good to have the basic info in the first post, so when new users ask FAQ's about shinies we can refer them to the OP.

Much appreciated.

I boxed up another 100 eggs last night - after hatching these 100 I'll be at 700 hatched for my mystery hunt. Hopefully it'll be shiny somewhat soon! I have an odd feeling it'll be earlier than 2,288 eggs (which my Houndour was), but of course now that I've said it I'm sure it'll go longer.

Also, just a reminder for all of us - the "one post a page" rule is relaxed, not eliminated. Just be sure that you're not having a one on one conversation that takes up 18 posts back and forth. Also, be sure to have some sort of substance within the post, either giving a solid update or information on an event that heppened, etc. Make sure to at least include a bit of substance to our posts so we don't have to go back to the one post per page rule.

Good luck hunting, all! And congrats on the shiny Aerodactyl (in the other thread)!!

Edit: Thanks for the reminder, Danger. I meant that since we're not buried thousands of pages in it's easier for people to find the info in the OP.

Last edited by YNCRN; 21st July 2012 at 5:06 PM.
Reason: Danger is better than me.

It's good to have the basic info in the first post, so when new users ask FAQ's about shinies we can refer them to the OP.

Much appreciated.

I boxed up another 100 eggs last night - after hatching these 100 I'll be at 700 hatched for my mystery hunt. Hopefully it'll be shiny somewhat soon! I have an odd feeling it'll be earlier than 2,288 eggs (which my Houndour was), but of course now that I've said it I'm sure it'll go longer.

Also, just a reminder for all of us - the "one post a page" rule is relaxed, not eliminated. Just be sure that you're not having a one on one conversation that takes up 18 posts back and forth. Also, be sure to have some sort of substance within the post, either giving a solid update or information on an event that heppened, etc. Make sure to at least include a bit of substance to our posts so we don't have to go back to the one post per page rule.

Good luck hunting, all! And congrats on the shiny Aerodactyl (in the other thread)!!

You never looked at the OP of the original thread, did you? That FAQ was always there

After hatching 331 Rattata's, I decided to switch targets. (At least I was able to get a better parent out of that batch, if nothing else)
So now I'm working on Spearows. I have a foreign DW female for this run, so the eggs are showing up much faster. Of course, my breeding ditto is very lonely now
After this I'll be breeding a couple birthday shinies for some friends. Hopefully they don't pick something that takes long to hatch, but knowing my luck... they'll all want eevees >.<

Hatching Lillipups this morning. I haven't hatched very many... Only 99 eggs this whole hunt. And I started this hunt on June 12. I've just been too busy to hatch. Well, maybe the 100th egg will be my lucky one. Lol. I have no actual hope of that, but still... It'd be funny. Considering my Eevee hunt has been put on hold after 7000+ eggs and two years.

250 eggs for Squirtle so far (I'm kinda lazy sometimes, today I hatched less than 50 eggs ) and still no shiny yet.
I'm hoping I'll get the shiny before 500 eggs, just like my previous three MM.
Once I got the Shiny Squirtle, that means I've completed my Shiny Kanto Starter collection, and I'm moving on to complete the Johto one (already got Meganium and Feraligatr, so now I only need Cyndaquil )

After that I'll finally update my shiny banner lol

and Serebii recently posted pics that involves Shiny Excadrill....it makes me want to get one, so now while hatching eggs I also look for shaking dust in caves, just in case a Shiny Drilbur/Excadrill pops out.

My shinies are not for trade or cloning.
Shinies are not listed in order, for example the last shiny on the banner is not always the latest shiny I've obtained.
Banner 1 made by Light Venusaur, thanks ^_^

And I happen to have a new shiny too!
But from other gen. My third RE hunt in JPN RUBY shone today.
And it's exactly the shiny I wanted like Venipede. I'm so blessed this month.
I've migrated it to my JPN HG then to JPN WHT so I might post the pic here.

But I'll post all about it in 3rd gen shiny thread just because.

Good luck guys. Hope the new thread brings more luck. Post away people... Make it 1,000 posts...

Last edited by Cutty; 21st July 2012 at 6:25 PM.

3DS FC: Cutty 2449 6004 1037

Wee... Poison slide at my gym...

Trinity Poison Leader. Pokegyms Fairy Leader

Credit to FairyWitch & Bradak for the userbar & sprite, also Azulart for the badge.

Hatching Lillipups this morning. I haven't hatched very many... Only 99 eggs this whole hunt. And I started this hunt on June 12. I've just been too busy to hatch. Well, maybe the 100th egg will be my lucky one. Lol. I have no actual hope of that, but still... It'd be funny. Considering my Eevee hunt has been put on hold after 7000+ eggs and two years.

Wow! 7,000+ eggs?! Dan2point5's record is most certainly in danger! Hopefully you get it soon...

Just boxed up another 150 Tauros eggs. I really hope it's in one of these... I tell you, the golf is speeding up this hunt immensely!

Well last night I finally hit 15,000 REs for Virbank Complex. I've somehow become more interested in this hunt now than a week ago. Hoping for a shiny Koffing since it'd be a first on youtube. Hoping for not a shiny patrat since I've got a shiny watchog already. Shiny Magby and Growlithe are 2nd and 3rd, magnemite in a strong 4th favorite.

Still working on my Giant Chasm hunt. 8935 encounters in and hoping for a shine soon! Knowing my luck, I won't get one until around 12K encounters. I am really trying to get one before next weekend! Come on Ditto or Metang!

Question: I know this may be almost impossible, but is there any way that if you are REing in double grass, could 2 pokemon be shiny in one battle? Example: Double grass in Giant Chasm... Is it possible (very, very, VERY UNLIKELY I know) to encounter a shiny Ditto and shiny Solrock in the same battle? I was thinking about this earlier, because you have to faint one pokemon in order to capture the other. I would cry if I found a shiny Metang and shiny Ditto in the same battle because I am after them both and can only pick one.

Still working on my Giant Chasm hunt. 8935 encounters in and hoping for a shine soon! Knowing my luck, I won't get one until around 12K encounters. I am really trying to get one before next weekend! Come on Ditto or Metang!

Question: I know this may be almost impossible, but is there any way that if you are REing in double grass, could 2 pokemon be shiny in one battle? Example: Double grass in Giant Chasm... Is it possible (very, very, VERY UNLIKELY I know) to encounter a shiny Ditto and shiny Solrock in the same battle? I was thinking about this earlier, because you have to faint one pokemon in order to capture the other. I would cry if I found a shiny Metang and shiny Ditto in the same battle because I am after them both and can only pick one.

it's very unlikely that you'll get two shinies in a double battle, but it's possible.
my friend decided on drilbur for his birthday gift, so I'll be breeding that on my White game this month. Since it's a present I not only need it to be shiny, but I need the right nature and ability as well >.< While I'm at it, I guess I should give it good IVs. I may end up with half a dozen shiny drilbur at the end of this project. I wonder how long it'll take... T_T

After doing a bit of musical trying to get props so that I can finish up the prop thing and turn my trainer card silver, I'm now MMing for another shiny Zorua so I could get myself a shiny Zoroark without having to evolve my current shiny Zorua. Am on egg 13/25.

Hi guys, well I'm planning an intensive hunt this weekend... Turtwig will shine

Really cool shinies there @seancon93, Riolu is one of my "must MM" pokés... the day will come for that hunt. Good luck with your next one
Nice Shroomish @Luneth777, it looks like an Autumn Shroomish
Wow, that is good luck @Shiny Lord, just decided to change your target and it shines... nice, Aerodactyl shiny colour is so cool, it looks like an ancient Crobat. Good luck with Snivy, the effort is totally worth it

Oh no @TheMaster327, don't give up... keep looking for it, I totally know how you feel, I also fell as if Turtwig is never going to shine but it's bond to happen, jus keep thinking on how awesome it will be whe he shines, and how great you will feel for not giving up

Good luck guys SRing, REing and MMing

PS:I know this is the 5th gen shiny post and mine is a 4th gen BQ, but this thread is the one were we shiny hunters gather... I still believe a non-exclusive-generation shiny post will fit better in this case

Edit: Ok, so to stay on topic and don't break the rules, I'm also SRing for Snivy in my White... still no shiny Snivy

Hi guys, well I'm planning an intensive hunt this weekend... Turtwig will shine

Really cool shinies there @seancon93, Riolu is one of my "must MM" pokés... the day will come for that hunt. Good luck with your next one
Nice Shroomish @Luneth777, it looks like an Autumn Shroomish
Wow, that is good luck @Shiny Lord, just decided to change your target and it shines... nice, Aerodactyl shiny colour is so cool, it looks like an ancient Crobat. Good luck with Snivy, the effort is totally worth it

Oh no @TheMaster327, don't give up... keep looking for it, I totally know how you feel, I also fell as if Turtwig is never going to shine but it's bond to happen, jus keep thinking on how awesome it will be whe he shines, and how great you will feel for not giving up

Good luck guys SRing, REing and MMing

PS:I know this is the 5th gen shiny post and mine is a 4th gen BQ, but this thread is the one were we shiny hunters gather... I still believe a non-exclusive-generation shiny post will fit better in this case

Actually, there IS a general shiny thread in the General Pokemon Discussion sub-forum. I prefer the generation specific shiny threads over that one though. I mainly post here, because all my hunts are on 5th gen, but I still read through the 4th and 3rd gen threads.

Well I'm done hunting for today. Didn't find Zorua and I plan to have a quota of 30 eggs/day. For me that's almost 2 hours with Zorua eggs (As I know that each egg is different depending one the pokemon). Now I'm just going to do Dream World and finish for now with pokemon until later in the day because I have a trade scheduled. Hopefully I'll have better hunting tomorrow that way I can get another shiny Zorua that I can evolve to have a shiny Zoroark.

Nice new thread. Glad I'm going to be able to post on the first page of this. 1000 pages coming right up. And it's nice to see that the post once per page rule is relaxed, it's nice to see shiny stories from the same person on the same page.

Wow! 7,000+ eggs?! Dan2point5's record is most certainly in danger! Hopefully you get it soon...

Tbh I don't really count hunts that are 'put on hold' too much because it kind of ruins the numbers imo. I mean if you do other hunts and stuff in between then those could easily have been Shiny (in this case) Eevee eggs.....am I the only one who feels this way?

Also, I imagine there will be a BW2 Shiny thread when the BW2 forum becomes more....used? So maybe when it's released outside of Japan?

Tbh I don't really count hunts that are 'put on hold' too much because it kind of ruins the numbers imo. I mean if you do other hunts and stuff in between then those could easily have been Shiny (in this case) Eevee eggs.....am I the only one who feels this way?

Also, I imagine there will be a BW2 Shiny thread when the BW2 forum becomes more....used? So maybe when it's released outside of Japan?

Yeah, I can never really decide when to start counting. Not only does it skew your numbers for the hunt on hold, but the new target number gets thrown off too. Like my 352 weedle eggs, sounds short but then I realized it had actually been more like 1600 eggs since my last shiny because I did a bulbasaur batch in between that failed to yield a shiny. But, in the end I keep track of the species hunts separately, regardless on if they were on hold or not. Its just easier for me that way, even if it does skew the numbers.

As for the second part, I doubt they will make a separate thread for BW2. Just because if you look in the 4th gen section, you find one thread for D/P/Pt AND HG/SS. Since they didn't split those up, I imagine the same will be true for 5th gen.

Firstly; the current one already had over 1000 pages so a restart just for that is not a bad idea. Secondly, the previous rule of having to post once per page is currently being relaxed. That means you can post multiple times a page! On that note however, you are not allowed to spam or post meaningless stuff like 'I haven't found any yet' too often; otherwise that rule may well reappear.

Yay a new thread! I thought my computer was glitching when I saw that the shiny thread only had two pages. Also glad to see the one post per page rule is being relaxed.

Anyway, continuing in my Zubat MM hunt. Hatched a total of about 209~ eggs or so (have to check my calculator for the exact number). I have 7 boxes of eggs, which I will hopefully hatch later (in between my reading of The Grapes of Wrath)